Cassini’s last view of Titan
The Cassini science team today released a mosaic of the last images Cassini took of Titan before it crashed into Saturn’s atmosphere four days layer.
The mosaic shows Titan’s north polar region, and shows seas, lakes, and spotty clouds. The lack of clouds is a puzzle to scientists, as they had expected the north polar region to be cloud-covered at this time as summer arrived there, as had been seen at the south pole.
During Titan’s southern summer, Cassini observed cloud activity over the south pole.
However, typical of observations taken during northern spring and summer, the view here reveals only a few small clouds. They appear as bright features just below the center of the mosaic, including a few above Ligeia Mare. “We expected more symmetry between the southern and northern summer,” said Elizabeth (“Zibi”) Turtle of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) team that captured the image. “In fact, atmospheric models predicted summer clouds over the northern latitudes several years ago. So, the fact that they still hadn’t appeared before the end of the mission is telling us something interesting about Titan’s methane cycle and weather.”
The truth is we haven’t the slightest idea whether the clouds over the south pole during its previous summer were normal or an aberration. We have barely seen a full year of seasons at Saturn and Titan. To confidently extrapolate any pattern from this slim data is silly.
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The Cassini science team today released a mosaic of the last images Cassini took of Titan before it crashed into Saturn’s atmosphere four days layer.
The mosaic shows Titan’s north polar region, and shows seas, lakes, and spotty clouds. The lack of clouds is a puzzle to scientists, as they had expected the north polar region to be cloud-covered at this time as summer arrived there, as had been seen at the south pole.
During Titan’s southern summer, Cassini observed cloud activity over the south pole.
However, typical of observations taken during northern spring and summer, the view here reveals only a few small clouds. They appear as bright features just below the center of the mosaic, including a few above Ligeia Mare. “We expected more symmetry between the southern and northern summer,” said Elizabeth (“Zibi”) Turtle of the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab and the Cassini Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) team that captured the image. “In fact, atmospheric models predicted summer clouds over the northern latitudes several years ago. So, the fact that they still hadn’t appeared before the end of the mission is telling us something interesting about Titan’s methane cycle and weather.”
The truth is we haven’t the slightest idea whether the clouds over the south pole during its previous summer were normal or an aberration. We have barely seen a full year of seasons at Saturn and Titan. To confidently extrapolate any pattern from this slim data is silly.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Saturn ranges between nine and 10 AU from the sun. That’s 40 times less sunlight then we receive. Putting the temperature near 400° below zero. Most of the moons receive more heat from saturn than they do from the sun. If they were expecting a big change in a small moons atmosphere because someone calls it summer…